There’s always a lot of people thanking each other in a campaign, but today the crew, the pilots, and whoever up there is responsible for good weather deserves all my kudos. I normally don’t get to sit on the airplane, as our instrument works as a Swiss clock and we prefer to save fuel to pull longer flight legs. Today the circumstances were atypical and I got to board, curiously on the day of the one-year anniversary form my previous flight, during the RACORO campaign in Oklahoma.
Touristic companies would have a hard time to match the quality of this Tour of California (and I didn’t have to pay for it). I have to share these pictures, although their quality doesn’t speak enough of the true beauty of the sight. In my partial defense, I must say that the small B200 is extremely crammed and taking a good shot requires leaning over the pilots, which is not something you want to do too often (all other windows are partially darkened).
The route led us South of Sacramento along the San Joaquin valley, majestically shouldered by the Sierras still loaded with late spring snow.
Fresno marked our big right turn toward the coast, right about when we spotted a small fire in the San Benito region.
The flight plan required overpassing some ground stations at NASA Ames and in Monterey, so we were absolutely forced to come back along the Big Sur. Absolutely. It truly is a glorious coastline with surf clearly visible even from a 9km altitude. Cloud banks were innocuously looming from the ocean, a single tongue of fog daring to come further right there where it should be.
The final stretch was over the valleys of Napa and Sonoma, and shortly before touchdown over the only cloud bank the plane had to overfly.
I finally want to mention that yesterday was also “media” day. Here and here is what came out of it. By the way, if you happen to watch the videos, you should note that even if Rahul investigates scientific principles, that doesn’t make him a “principle investigator” as the banner reports. He’s the “principal investigator”. Don’t mean to brag too much about it, it’s just a matter of principle. Since we’re at it, measuring the composition of particles requires a “spectrometer” rather than an “aspectrometer”. Well, in a way we’re measuring the aspect of particles.
-Matteo
First day on the field. I made it to McClellan airfield (with luggage lost of course). Off-course! So many things to do, trying to get my bearings and making sure I know who is who.
Guess what? I have a fellow blogger! Rahul Zaveri, the principal investigator of the mission, is posting regular updates on the Pacific Northwestern National Laboratory website.
We must mention here that CARES is actually happening simultaneously to CalNex, a big effort involving the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the California Energy Commission (CEC).
Several aircraft and vessels at sea have been deployed since May over California and the Eastern Pacific coastal region, collecting data to study the relation between air quality and climate change. Lots of folks have been working around the clock during the last month. That part of the campaign staged Ontario, CA as a base camp and lots of aerosols were detected and monitored in Southern California.
On another note, I checked out the Biennial at the Whitney Museum in New York City’s Upper East Side last weekend. Huge noise on the second floor, and I followed it. It led me to Ari Marcopoulos‘ installation, a simple home-made video called “Detroit”. It carefully portrayed two kids creating all sort of bzzzzzz–waa-waa-ffoossshhhhh-skrrreeeeek sounds by gently whacking old transistor amps and skillfully acting on the knobs of guitar distortion pedals.
I’ll let you guess until a later post why bzzzzzz–waa-waa-ffoossshhhhh-skrrreeeeek reminded me of CARES. I can just see you sizzling with trepidation already….
Matteo Ottaviani, NASA GISS
